Ashmore partners World Chess Federation president to launch Russia fund

By: Anna Fedorova | 13 Jul 2012

The president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the World Chess Federation, is to launch a fund with British investment manager Ashmore Group to invest in Russia, the CIS region and Asia.

According to the report by Russia’s news agency Kommersant, the fund will be seeded with $1bn with the view to increase the size of the fund ten-fold.

It will primarily invest in the power industry, metallurgy, food manufacturing and telecoms. Companies involved in the privatisation initiative approved by Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev may also be of interest.

The fund will be open to international investors and will also hold Ilyumzhinov’s own assets. The move marks the first time Ashmore forms an investment partnership with a private investor.

Neither Ilyumzhinov, nor officials at Ashmore agreed to provide comment on the launch to Russian journalists prior to the official statement. Investment Europe could not reach Ashmore officials by telephone.

Ashmore, with $63.7bn in assets under management at June 30, already operates three specialised funds on the Russian market: Ashmore Russian Equity fund, Ashmore Russian Debt Portfolio and VTBC-Ashmore Real Estate Partners, which invests in real estate in Moscow together in partnership VTB Capital.